Visiting Fellow Seminar Series
For two to three weeks each year, this program brings to the University of Illinois at Chicago community a scholar whose innovative work has played a crucial role in reconceptualizing the disciplines of the humanities. Seminars are open to faculty and advanced graduate students.
The 2008-2009 Institute for the Humanities Visiting Fellow is Houston A Baker, Jr., Distinguished University Professor, Vanderbilt University. He will be in residence at UIC from October 20-31, 2008, offering two seminars and a public lecture. The two seminars are open to faculty and advanced graduate students. Preregistration is not required but it is highly recommended. The lecture is open to the public.
Seminar will take place in the Institute of Humanities. lower level, Stevenson Hall.
Lecture: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 at 4 p.m
"Just Enough for the City: Richard Wright and the Black Urban Imaginary "
Seminar I: Thursday October 23, 2008 from 2 p.m to 5 p.m
"My Life As the Ghetto: How Where We are Reared Conditions Our Intellectual Life Forever ... For Good or Ill "
To paraphrase H. Rap Brown: “Segregation in the U.S. is as American as Cherry Pie.” From the holds of slave ships in the trade to present-day Detroit (the most segregated city in the U.S.) zones of confinement have been chief venues of black life in the Americas. Arrangements of black life south and north of the Mason-Dixon have been marked by what Richard Wright calls “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow.” Focusing on the U.S. South and analyzing selected texts, the seminar will explore: the “regional” distinctiveness and “national” homogeneity of black southern autobiographical projects; the southern rootedness of northern ghettos; the imperatives of black intellectual life derived from or conditioned by segregated/ghetto early life. Along the way, it will be incumbent to sample critical pros and cons of the “New Southern Studies.”
Seminar II: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
"Bright Boyz Against the Hood: Black Neocons, Centrists, Comedians, and Magic Negro Politicians"
During the second week of the Visiting Fellowship, we shall examine how "bright" young (and not so young) black men overcome the ghetto, deploy their native brilliance, and become behaviorist, neo-conservative, politically centrist, and beloved paid spokespersons for the white mainstream. Of course, the prevailing politics of "post-race" black presidential hopefulness will be on the table, but the more rigorous analytic will be a question of race treachery, black psychological denial of continuing disenfranchisement, and much more. The primary text will be Houston Baker's Betrayal. The works of Adolph Reed, Norman Kelley, and others will supplement discussion. The DVD "Street Fight" featuring the campaigns of Cory Booker and other visuals will also supplement. No greater supplement could be imagined than the two-party system's national conventions.
Seminars will take place in the Institute for the Humanities, lower level, Stevenson Hall, and are open to faculty and advanced graduate students. Preregistration is highly recommended. To preregister, please contact Linda Vavra, 996-6354, lvavra@uic.edu .
Click here to see a complete list of Visiting Fellows: